Translate this posting

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Rotten Apple

Jo Anne sat
at a table beneath this iconic poster of the late visionary iconoclast, Steve Jobs, for nearly an hour last week, arguing with a series of Apple customer service reps over warranty coverage of a failed
$20 iPhone power cable. Five people: the gal at the Apple franchise dealer and her closeted manager, then
two agents at the Apple call center and, finally, their supervisor.

Writer
Gerald F. Lieberman said it best:

“If the first person who answers
the phone cannot answer your question, it’s a bureaucracy. If the first person
can answer the question, it’s a miracle.”

At
issue was whether the power cable on my wife’s five-month-old, $649.99 iPhone
was simply frayed … or was its wiring exposed.

When my wife handed the failed cable to the gal at the store’s customer care counter, Jo Anne anticipated a simple exchange. The cable had failed, it was under warranty,
please exchange it for a new one.

And so
it began.

The gal took the cable into a back room through a door marked Employees Only and returned a minute later to explain what her
manager had ruled. The wiring was showing, so the warranty was invalid. If the
cable had been only frayed, the warranty would apply. If the store exchanged the
cable, Apple would not reimburse them -- because
the store hadn’t honored Apple’s warranty requirements concerning power cables.Jo Anne's position was based on cause and effect – the way everything else in the universe works: the cable had frayed, therefore the wiring was exposed.

Who knew the iPhone’s $20 power cable was so dear to Apple?

If my
wife talked to Apple directly and won an exception, the exchange could happen,
the gal said, whose name we had by now learned was Casey and who had come over to our side because she felt sorry for Jo Anne.

Right there and then, Jo Anne got on her iPhone and called Apple.

The
first agent talked to her for a while and passed her to another.

The second
agent talked to her for a while and then asked to speak to Casey.

Casey talked
for a while and then carried the phone to her manager – still taking cover in
the back room – for further consultation.

Then
the phone was handed back to my wife. The second agent talked to her for a
while and then transferred her to his supervisor, Carlos.

Carlos relented.
He would deliver a new cable to my wife -- via
Fedex Priority Overnight. She, in turn, would send the failed cable back to Apple for
examination -- via Fedex Priority Overnight.

She had
to provide a credit card number, however, and a hold was put on the card for $20.

The
next morning the new cable arrived at our home and the failed cable was returned. So far, the
$20 hold has not been charged.